Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (18 page)

Samuel was three months old, and she was determined that he would never go without anything. She kept wondering how Christmas could have been if Mervin had still been alive. Samuel would never know his father, but she refused to let the terrible events of the previous Christmas drag her down.

A black motorbike stood on its side stand in the small garden at the front of the property. There were no signs of Christmas, not even a wreath attached to the front door. The windows were rectangles of darkness, and the longer she stared, the worse she felt. She had once been told a story about a being called Krampus, and she had suffered nightmares for several weeks following. He was Santa’s evil twin. She had stopped believing in Santa long ago, but the sense of ill will that radiated from the darkness within brought back memories of those dreams, and they made her shiver.

When she returned home, she phoned Theresa Simmons the local estate agent. She felt an almost overwhelming sense of dread, and she did not think the feeling would leave all the while she stayed close to the gatehouse and its new occupant.

That night she dreamt she was sitting alone in a bar when an old man sat next to her and asked what felt like a strange question. When she awoke, it was still dark outside, and she could not remember the answer she had given any more than she could remember any detail of the man’s face, but the voice of the old man stayed with her like an echo: “
Popular choice
.”

* * *

Guy Burtenshaw lives in a small town in southern England and has been writing horror stories for many years. He has self-published several horror novels and his short stories can be found in various magazines and anthologies. He also writes murder mystery novels under the pseudonym G D Shaw.

Ninth Night of Krampus: “Nothing to Dread”

by Jeff Provine

Inspiration
: Jeff writes: “While researching Krampus, I was struck how it was an incorporation of an older religious spirit filling the need to punish bad little boys and girls while St. Nick rewarded the good ones. Without consequences, kids run wild. I wanted to do a story from the beginning where a kid fought back in an attempt to be a good boy, but it would ultimately mean backfiring.” Or does it backfire? You decide, Dear Reader.

His cloven hooves made stalwart clacks against the cobblestone street. Rusty chains sat on his shoulders, wrapped carefully over the matted brown fur so they rattled with every step. In his clawed hands, he carried the bundle of birch twigs still warm from the backsides of children farther down the street.

All around him, the town was quiet. Doors were locked. Windows were latched tight with the curtains drawn behind them. There were few lights and even fewer whispers. Somewhere behind him, he could hear a bad child whimpering. At least now he knew to keep his crying soft enough not to disturb his parents. Krampus prowled tonight, and it wouldn’t be beyond him to make a second trip.

He stopped at the three-story house in the middle of the street. Its white face had been recently repainted with a pastoral scene between the wooden beams. He sniffed the cold air with his hircine nostrils.

The parents were good folk, avoiding the pitfalls of wealth with generosity and kindness. The girl, Anna, was good, too. She did her chores with a contented smile. She helped her mother without being asked. She had even given her doll to the poor girl who was sick two streets over, where Krampus had whipped the boy who stole from the larder to stuff his gluttonous face. The warm spice of Anna’s goodness burned Krampus’s nose.

He turned away from it to the sickly sweet stench of badness that came from the boy, Jakob. Krampus had never visited the boy before, but Jakob was 10 now, that age when boys begin to think of the trouble they can cause. In the past month alone, this boy had been caught loitering in the church when he should have been doing chores. Then he began playing with his father’s hunting traps. The worst was his stealing from rich old Herr Eckles, who had taken up newfangled photography, that mad art that trapped a piece of the unwitting human’s soul in a portrait.

Krampus snorted and mumbled to himself in his gruff voice, “Photography. What fools humans are.”

He stamped his hoof in front of the house. The front door began to groan.

He stamped again. Its locks ticked as the bolts slid free.

He stamped a third time, and the door opened wide with a loud, slow, long creak.

Krampus felt his furred neck bristle. He tightened his grip on the birch switches and heard them screech together.

The house was dark, but his ancient eyes had no problem piercing the darkness. His pointed ears made out the sounds of the snoring parents and the soft sleeping breaths of Anna. They would sleep through the whole of Jakob’s lesson thanks to the Krampus’s power.

Jakob was still awake. He could hear the fast beating of the boy’s heart. Krampus felt his lip pull back enough in a smile to let the cold air sting some of his sharp teeth.

He strode into the house, careful not to touch the power of the threshold, and set a hoof quietly onto the floorboards. They whined under his evil touch.

His hooves crossed the boards and the rugs, leaving small rings of ash as prints. Krampus stalked up the stairs, pressing his weight on them one by one to make them squeal. Jakob’s heart pounded louder and louder.

In the upstairs hall, the smells of Anna mixed with the odor of Jakob’s bad deeds. Krampus spat and hurried past Anna’s room. Nicholas and the Christ child would visit her soon enough. He had more important work to do than bribing children for saying “yes, please” and “thank you.” Krampus was here to punish the wicked.

He stopped in front of Jakob’s door and raised his clawed hand to the wood. First he scratched, louder and louder until he raked his claws to the doorknob. Then he opened the door and leaned inside.

A horrid flash, ten times the brightness of lightning, exploded in the room. Krampus screamed and dropped his birch sticks. He stabbed his claws into his eyes to drown out the pain.

Then there was a clap, not of thunder, but the sharp shriek of iron. More pain bit deep into Krampus’s leg halfway up from the hoof. He let out a howl that roared like a bear and bleated like a goat. Krampus could feel his Hell-warmed blood trickling down his leg.

Krampus tugged at his leg against a heavy weight. He blinked his square eyes until they could see in the dark again. It was iron, a sharp-toothed trap meant for wolves.

A match lit up in the shadows, and a lantern began its warm glow on the bedside table. From under the blankets, Jakob’s voice sang, “
Wundervoll
!”

Krampus growled back at him. “Release me!”

Jakob pushed back the blankets. He was still fully dressed in his leather pants and coat. “No, Herr Krampus, I will not be doing a thing like that.”

Krampus tugged again at his leg. The trap was linked to a stake in the floor by a chain.

It wasn’t the only trap on the floor. They were laid out in a three-tiered circle completely around the doorway. No matter where Krampus had stumbled in his blindness, he was bound to be caught.

Above the door, a wire ran to a smoldering plate of camera flash powder, ignited when the door had opened. Another wire ran from the windowpane.

Jakob stepped out of bed and expertly glided his little boots between them. Krampus stared down at him, almost twice his height.

“Release me, boy!” Krampus commanded.

Jakob looked up at him with wide blue eyes. “I know you’re my elder, Herr Krampus, but I’m going to disobey.”

Krampus grunted. “That is one more lashing you’ll get from me.”

He patted his belt for his switch, but it wasn’t there. Snorting with surprise, he searched for his lost
ruten
. It rested in the hall, where he had dropped it in the flash.

The boy ducked beneath his reach out into the hall and picked up the bundle of birch.

Jakob narrowed his eyes. They shone like blue sparks. “You won’t be lashing anyone ever again.”

He broke off one of the twigs with his little hands.

Krampus gasped. “How dare you, you miserable mortal doomed to die!”

“Die and go to Heaven.” Jakob stuck out his tongue. “You burn in Hell all but one night a year, and then on Judgment Day, what’ll happen to you?”

Krampus growled deep in his throat. He did not like to think about the Lake of Fire. His furry coat bristled as he shuddered inside it.

The little boy turned and walked away.

Krampus lunged after him. The iron trap held tight to his leg and stopped him, the boy’s blonde hair just inches beyond the Krampus’s outstretched claw.

Krampus pulled back his claws and leaned over the trap. He carefully knitted his fingers between the teeth and tried to pry it open. His muscles strained and he groaned, but the trap would not budge. He fell back, panting the cold night air. In the flickering light, he saw crude letters etched into the trap spelling out the name of God over and over.

He snorted. The boy was smart, but being smart was as dangerous as being rich. Krampus felt his lips pull back into a smile. He called after Jakob, “Never mind me, you should worry about yourself. Heaven is for good boys, not boys visited by Krampus for being bad.”

The little white face appeared out of the darkness. Krampus almost shrank back in horror before he stopped himself.

“Don’t you do that,” Jakob warned.

Krampus made his voice as sweet as poisoned honey. “Do what? I’m just trying to point out a fact. If you really want to be good, you might start by releasing a poor creature caught in a painful trap.” He whined and made his chains rattle.

Jakob’s blue eyes were cold. His hands were behind his back.

“Think of how Saint Peter would look at such generosity. Don’t you want to be a good little boy?”

Jakob shook his head slowly.

Krampus blinked. His chains rustled.

“I’m tired of being just good,” Jakob said softly. “I want to be great. I want to do something that will make an impact for generations.”

Krampus shifted backward. “What do you mean to do, boy?”

Jakob pulled his hands out from behind his back, revealing the huge family Bible, bound in leather hundreds of years before.

Krampus hissed at it and shielded his eyes.

“Herr Krampus,” Jakob said, his voice firm and serious, “starting immediately, you will leave my house and never return. Tonight is the last night you will come into my town.”

A laugh welled up inside the Krampus. It wasn’t the high-pitched chatter he made when a bad child’s cried, it was a deep and true laugh that sprang out of him, braying and spitting. It was the first laugh he had given in a long time.

“You don’t have the power to do that! Who do you think you are? Solomon? The Archangel Michael?”

“No. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Krampus wiped a tear from his eye, stinking like sulfur. “Obviously you don’t.”

“It’ll be your promise. And we both know that a demon must keep an oath when he makes it. Only humans are able to go back on our fallible words.”

Krampus almost laughed again. “Oh? You’re so clever aren’t you? You may be smart, boy, even smart enough to trap me, but how could you make me take a vow?”

“It’s late, but I can’t seem to fall asleep. I think I’ll do some reading.”

The boy carefully placed the Bible on the floor and sat down next to it. Krampus suddenly felt his stomach, light with laughter, grow heavy.

Jakob peeked up with an arched eyebrow. “Vow that you’ll never return to Leonding, and I’ll let you go.”

Krampus growled. He tugged at the trap again, but it only bit deeper into his leg.

“I believe I’ll start with some Psalms,” Jakob said. He turned to the middle of the massive tome and traced the lines with his finger. “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth…”

Each syllable stung Krampus’s ears like a hornet again and again. He tried to dig his claws in deep to drown out the sounds and pressed his eyes closed, but nothing seemed to stop the holy words. He stamped his free hoof and doubled over.

The pain was unbearable, but he could not lose to a child, a
bad
child! They were his domain. He should have been the one to cause the pain. He should have whipped Jakob so he couldn’t sit until the New Year. He should have stuffed Jakob into his tub and carted him away to burn with him. Jakob should have felt this agony!

Krampus lasted until the twenty-third Psalm, when he collapsed to the floor under the words “green pastures.”

“Enough!” he roared.

Jakob paused. “You promise?”

“I promise!” Krampus howled. “I will leave and never visit this forsaken town ever again!”

Jakob closed the Bible. Without a word, he stood and got a broom. Using it as a pry, he opened the mouth of the trap.

Krampus pulled his hoof free and shuffled across the floor away from the boy. He nearly bumped into the Bible and fled from it as well. When he bumped into the wall, he clawed his way up to stand, leaving marks in the plaster.

Jakob took a step toward Krampus, brandishing his own birch sticks like a club. “Now leave and never come back.”

Krampus limped to the hall window. Tears and snot and blood poured down his face. He spoke with words broken by sobs.

“See how you like it, living in a world where bad little boys aren’t punished!”

Jakob smiled. “We have our consciences.”

Krampus growled and shoved the window open. He jumped out into the cold night.

In the darkness, he hung in the air. He could not fall; his hooves were banished from touching the cobblestone street below. Forces even more powerful than he kept him to his word. Not even gravity could break a demon’s oath. The wind blew him toward Vienna.

There would be no punishment for Nina who pulled her sister’s hair or Adolf who refused to study. Jakob’s town was forever freed of the Krampus.

* * *

Jeff Provine is a farm kid turned composition professor. He draws web comics, blogs Alternate History, and writes freelance. The summer of 2014 saw the publication of his steampunk Celestial Voyages series and a YA genre-bender Dawn on the Infinity. Learn more about Jeff at www.jeffprovine.com.